I spent the night calculating my finances for this trip. It is really quite troublesome to be counting every single amount of money you have. I made the mistake of bringing in just enough US Dollars to spend here in Myanmar. After my first day in Myanmar and discovering how not much cheaper it is here, I began to worry about how this will not be enough for me. I made the decision to cut short the trip, since there was that huge Thingyan festival coming up, I won’t be able to go hopping from town to town anyway. And from my calculations, travelling from one place to another was my biggest expense. So I made the logical choice, stop moving around and just stay in one place.
Which would explain why I ended up spending several days here in Nyaungshwe in the Inle Lake area. It is really tough to run out of money in a foreign land without any access to ATMs or credit cards. It would seem that this is a common problem for some back packers here in Myanmar. However, I think I would just be able to make it and still enjoy my trip here. Having set aside the money for my trip back to Yangon and my stay there, I found out I still have some money for some exploring. Without another tourist to share the Inle tour, it was still not an option. So I decided to go to a place which I skipped.
I took a pickup near the market which brought me to the junction at Shwenyaung. I find the name amusing since it is just the reverse of Nyaungshwe, Whether or not the naming was intentional is anybody’s guess. I took another pickup to the town of Kalaw. Which took a rugged two hours of travel along the mountainous highway. The trouble with the pickup was the ceiling of the pickup was quite low and I kept hitting my head on the metal supports of the roof. The guy collecting the money noticed my predicament and offered some tips to avoid hitting my head over and over again. The road was quite rough to it wasn’t really difficult to do this.
At Kalaw, the guide pre-arranged by the staff at Bright Hotel found me. My guide, Naing-naing, is part of a guest house which specializes in hikes in Kalaw. This group seems to be good friends with the people of Bright hotel since they regularly recommend people to stay there. Naing-naing is a lanky Indian Burmese who speaks good English. He seems quite friendly and we immediately took off to the mountain trails of Kalaw.
Kalaw is a known hiking destination in Myanmar. A lot of travellers stop here and take a three day hike to Inle Lake. It sounds like a very interesting hike, but again, I don’t really have the time to do this. I will only be here for a short day hike and Naing-naing has already prepared something for me. Surprisingly, it took use around 20 minutes to clear Kalaw town before we really were in the mountain trails. The air was quite refreshing but since it was midday, it was not as cool as I wanted to me.
Soon enough the sun was bearing down on us and I started sweating really bad. I guess I was really out of shape. In addition, I was starting to get a little queasy. I think it was from the rough and tumble pickup ride from Shwenyaung, and I was starting to feel the effects. Soon enough, at a bend along the mountain trail, I threw up several times. I was surprised myself but I managed to stabilize myself. Naing-naing on the other hand was quite shocked to see his client in such bad shape. Fortunately, he brought some medicine for this kind of thing and he promptly gave me some.
After settling down a bit, I finally got the strength to continue on the hike. At least the cool mountain air will help clear my mind of dizziness I was still having from that pickup ride. At a junction, Naing-naing asked me whether I would continue to visit the two tribal villages, I really wanted to go visit and see how these tribes live but I thought it would be better if we just continue on until the end of the hike. I do not want to be throwing up at the village, right?
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